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One reason I love gathering skills is because every skill is an arrow in my quiver with which I can use to solve a different kind of problem. And, the more versions of solutions I have the farther and wider I can look for the correct solution for the problem.

Dumbness alone is rarely the driving threat: at the head of almost every dumb movement, you will find the stupid in charge.

Man is the creature that doesn’t know what to desire. So we look to other people in order to know.

If you could redesign society from scratch, but had to make those decisions without knowing who you would be in this new society, what would it look like?

Compromise tests ideas no one ever thought were correct in the first place.

New ideas in how we should govern ourselves, or new models for economic production, are inevitably going to come out of unlikely places, where extreme conditions or new technological platforms make those new ideas imaginable for the first time.

A snapshot of someone’s life on Instagram tells you nothing about that person’s actual life. That’s how we should treat all those things: As pure entertainment, not as inspiration for life.

As usual, evolution seems to privilege warning signals.

Giving up your anger doesn’t mean you’re powerless or giving up hope. You’ll be able to handle the situation in a smarter way once you accept that the universe is not here to do your bidding.

The whole point of Stoicism is what you do. It’s who you are. It’s the act of virtue, not the act of talking about virtue. It’s about embodying your rules and principles.

Working from one desk was a measure put in place to save the company money, not to help you do your best work.

Companies prioritize talking about work at the expense of doing it and reward presence over productivity.

Regardless of whether your organization is fully remote, hybrid, or 100% in the office, defaulting to an async communication model gives employees the flexibility they crave.

“Everything sucks, some of the time.” You just have to decide what sort of suckage you’re willing to deal with. So the question is not so much “What are you passionate about?” The question is “What are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work?”

Next time, instead of asking if it's right, ask them what's wrong.

Everything relies on everything else in order to manifest.

“Started as a joke, but turned into something beautiful” is a recipe for creativity.

It is important to remember that we cannot make ourselves feel joy. We can, however, set the intention to be more open to joy and to cultivate it through repeated and patient practice.

We measure what matters. Therefore, if we don’t measure it or can’t measure it, it must not matter. And values are not something we know how to consistently measure right now.

We went from modernism—”Make it new!” Let’s shape History!—to postmodernism—everything sucks! Nothing really matters!—to metamodernism: maybe things are not this black-and-white? Maybe there’s a middle ground?

When I’m overwhelmed by the range of possibilities, I try to remember that all I really have to do is to commit to one thing.

All of our knowledge is conjectural. All of it is our best guess at the time.

There is actually much room for pleasure in disengagement. From withdrawing from all theses demands to consume and develop as a person.

Other people have perceptions, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from your own, and these things can influence people’s behavior.

It's so easy to switch off from what someone’s is sharing with you and just be waiting for your moment to jump in and regale your story, or share your solution.

The Ladder of Ownership — Lvl1: Judging > Lvl2: Gossiping > Lvl3: Giving feedback > Lvl4: Giving deep feedback > Lvl5: Collaborating > Lvl6: Driving > Lvl7: Owning.

If you want to have wilder, curiouser thoughts, you have to avoid the industrial monocropping of big-tech feeds.

Internal resistance is an attempt to avoid the pain we associate with successfully doing the thing. Internal resistance is not lazy — it’s fucking energetic as hell!

It is perfectly okay to enjoy the good times, but trying to keep them forever gets us in trouble with life itself.

While it’s a good use of our energy to name what’s outside of our control, it isn’t a good use of our energy to assume that everything is outside of our control. It’s better to focus on what’s within our control, even in situations where mostly everything is outside of it.

For good reason, the expectations linked to front stage and back stage behavior influence most folks to work pretty hard to keep these two realms remain separate and distinct.

Don’t think about consumption - even your consumption - as ‘’individual’’. Think of yourself as a node for social, political and moral contagion.

If your creativity is driven by a desire to get attention, you're never going to be creatively fulfilled.

I meet a lot of people who think: I should only show work that is good and meets my (internally high) bar. But doing the opposite tends to get you further.

You can't ever be sure the future will go the way you want. But you can usually be sure that when it fails to go the way you want, you'll have the wherewithal to cope.

If words label and even create our world, what does it mean to lack a particular word in our own language? Are we not then missing out on some vital parts of existence that fail to us, out of sight.

In essence, creativity is not really about building something new out of thin air. It’s about using your past experiences, connecting the dots to visualize the future, and letting your mind wander so you can experience more eureka moments.

Sorting Your Life Out is never going to happen.

My friends and I who are building websites — we’re kids! We’re kids playing around with tools given to us by adults.

You don’t have to make a decision everyday if you know what the rule is.

We believe we can use technology to lean into the ‘reality’ of augmented reality — encouraging everyone, ourselves included, to stand up, walk outside, and connect with people and the world around us. This is what we humans are born to do, the result of two million years of human evolution, and as a result those are the things that make us the happiest. Technology should be used to make these core human experiences better — not to replace them.

If you make products, you better have a sense of where you’re heading without having to ask for directions.

Learn more about subjects that intimidate you. We fear what we don’t understand.

The more seamless that we can make ‘’work IN life’’, the more we start to enjoy both more because they’re not opposing.

Ignore what you wish were true. Use the past to build your schedule.

Ever wish you could tell your boss to change something, but they don't seem open to criticism? Most of us stay silent. Why piss off the person who can promote or fire you? But the ones who do this well gain more respect and trust.

You feel a lot. Which means sometimes you’re gonna hurt a lot, but it also means you’re gonna live a life that is emotionally rich and really beautiful.

I don’t care about your guilt or commiserations. Be an active accomplice, not an apathetic ally.

What’s needed today is sustained outrage at the powerful, by those with the time and resources to express it.

Everyone who has ever come up with a simple solution knows that it's one of the hardest things to accomplish.

It’s easiest to convince people that you’re special if they don’t know you well enough to see all the ways you’re not.

If someone wastes 10 minutes of yours, 9 minutes is your fault.

The costs of covid-19 have been tragic, but the pandemic has also compressed a decade’s worth of digital innovation in areas like remote work into less than a year.

A desire to learn from the successful is a natural instinct, but this can backfire if we don’t take into account ‘’survivorship bias’’.

I am not proud of any project I did. I don’t work to be proud, I never think I did the best. I did the best I could.

Homo sapiens is a self-aggrandizing and dangerous species that has assumed domination over a planet it is only just beginning to understand.

Over half the people are gonna choose the default. So, by default do the right thing and you immediately have improved whatever ecosystem/community you’re part of.

Your thoughts and feelings are not “you.” Did you decide to have them? No. They just popped up.

People don't like losing control, even if it's good for their health.

99% of the folks criticizing your product aren’t building anything themselves.

When we change our method of questioning we also change the outcome.

What’s one thing about your ____ that, if fixed, would make you never want to give up?

Think you can banish conflict from your team? Think again. The occasional spat or disagreement is normal.

Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening.

Many people fail in reaching their personal-development goals because they have unrealistic expectations about the speed, amount, ease, and consequences of attempts at self-change.

If there’s a “war for our attention” – as we’re often told – our role often seems to be that of collaborators with the enemy.

Saying something won’t work for me is simply a way to get out of trying.

People said I did the impossible, but that’s wrong: I merely did something so boring that nobody else had been willing to do it.

Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.

The pursuit of achievement distracts from the deeply ordinary activities and relationships that make life meaningful.

When you find yourself thinking: « what if it doesn’t work? » Try asking yourself: « What if it does? »

If you're feeling frustrated, just focus on the next smallest step. Build momentum.

As Westerners, we believe in pushing up against the limits, and going over them. We max ourselves out in every facet of our lives until there is no more margin left.

A big part of learning to think is recognizing and overriding our default reactions and responses to situations.

At a time when there are fewer reasons to go outside and more ways to avoid each other, let’s not forget that self-reliance is an illusion.

Motivation often changes and fluctuates day-to-day, even moment-to-moment.

The trouble with market research is that people don’t think what they feel, they don’t say what they think, and they don’t do what they say.

In our striving to improve our lives, our work, and our society, we overwhelmingly add. We overlook the option to subtract from what is already there.

If you just follow your preference or go in the direction that everything else is going, it's really easy to get caught in a place where you can be controlled.

Our best ideas rarely come alive in busyness. They spring to life in calm and aimless contemplation.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier not that the nature of the task has changed but our ability to do has increased.

"be nice" is too often coded language for "don't make anyone uncomfortable" — but to be kind, we often need to have uncomfortable conversations.

Expertise is specific and tacit knowledge. Everything that cannot be taught: all the judgment you hone by doing, all the untold stories and relevant data recalled at your fingertips.

Working through something is the only way to explore the idea maze. Everything else is commentary.

Stop chasing meaning and freedom and happiness because those only serve to move it further away from itself.

There’s always more money to be made, more followers to accrue, more more more. But I’ve never truly felt happier than I do right now and it’s because we’ve defined what OUR specific success looks like based on the lives WE want to live.

The first step to changing your life is believing that change is possible for you. If you don’t think it’s possible for you, you’ll remain a victim believing you are completely powerless. I know it’s hard when you can’t see a way out, but please dig deep for that little spark of hope.

This is a great place to start, not to end up.

The core idea is to shift your default from sharing finished work to sharing unfinished work, back-of-the-napkin ideas, and lessons you learn on the way.

Too often our quest for perfection becomes an excuse to avoid moving forward.

Walk over to someone’s desk and ask or show something is an underrated feature of work life. And when that’s gone what do we do?

People don’t always need something new. Sometimes all they need is you to make them see things differently.

Just because we're good at something doesn't mean it's fulfilling.

We fear being ourselves in case we push people away, but that’s the whole point of authenticity and finding ‘your people’. Wouldn’t you rather be a HELL YES to a small group of people who vibe you, that a ‘meh’ to a world of people you’re sacrificing your truth in order to please?

I think a lot of people want to be but they don’t want to do.

The reader wants to see, your job is to do the pointing.

You can say why to pretty much anything [...] and so you get to really interesting fundamental principles.

I see myself as a well-working lens, a perceiver of something that exists independently of me: don’t look at me, look at what I’ve found.

Design isn’t a product that designers produce, design is a process that designers facilitate.

I think it’s probably hard to develop deep held confidence that you’ll be okay in all circumstances if your appetite for risk isn’t high enough.

We tend to think of serendipity as something that just happens to us, when actually it’s a process of spotting and connecting the dots, to see bridges where others see gaps.

What you work on is far more important than how hard you work.

Invest in you by thinking about yourself. Not others. Thinking about yourself doesn't mean you're selfish. Selfish is when you don't care about others.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed by who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Even if nobody reads your content, someone still benefitted from it: you.

The better you’re able to constructively work with people, the easier it’ll be to put petty differences aside and just do the best work.

I think what self love is, is the relationship and the tools that you have to get yourself out of those moments [bad days].

When I make a decision, I don’t think about how I’m going to feel about it today. Rather, I project out 30 days and imagine how I’ll feel about it then. That forward reflection makes the decision.

While looking to the future is fun, the more important question is, “What’s not going to change in the next ten years?”

Resilience is normally a collective thing. It’s because you are part of a resilient community that you feel like you got the strengths of others to draw upon. You can’t be resilient on your own.

Help others see your side and by the same token, do your best to see where they’re coming from. Remember: you could both be wrong.

The turning point isn't when you publish 100 blog posts. It's not when you gain 1,000 followers. And it's not when you collect a million views. It's the first time you turn nothing into something.

The real beauty of progressive enhancement is that if you really take it seriously, a user won’t even notice if they don’t have the “optimal experience”.

If you’re sad, traveling won’t immediately change that feeling. Unfortunately feelings can follow you across the world. Hopefully a change of scenery can change your perspective. It’s always worth a try.

It’s only when I disengage my brain that something comes to me.

I think sometimes barriers help you to invent techniques that you would not normally think of.

In adulthood, friend-making needs to become intentional if it’s going to happen. The crucial friend-making act is this: you have to ask a not-quite-friend if they want to do something.

Seeking the truth is courageous. Validating your beliefs is easy.

The content we consume have the ability to determine the type of person we’ll become.

Don’t say « You can’t take a joke » when you haven’t gotten to the joke yet. Jokes are being ruined by people like yourself saying shitty misogynistic things and when we call them out they say « I’m joking ». You were never joking in the first place, you were being a dick.

Fear of failure is higher when you're not working on the problem. If you are taking action, you are less worried about failure because you realize you can influence the outcome.

My relationship with the entire world in this moment depends entirely on the relationship I have with myself.

As a founder, my whole job is to put myself out of a job.

Stress isn’t good or bad. It’s a tool. In small doses it’s good, but too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing pretty quickly.

You spend years learning how to read and write, years learning how to speak, but what about listening? What training or education have you had that enables you to listen so that you really, deeply understand another person from within that person's frame of reference.

I don’t know why my body is so intent on sabotaging my brain, when my brain is perfectly capable of sabotaging itself.

One of the biggest things lost in remote work is chance meetings. When you read stories of how things happened, chance meetings were often crucial.

No one needs permission to learn and build with the internet. It’s free. Those with an online track record will land more opportunities than those with a resume.

Life happens in phases, and I think it’s totally acceptable to just follow the ebb and flow of your interests.

I don’t give a fuck what car you drive or what house you live in. How many days can you go without working again?

If you limit your goals to what you know you can achieve, you are setting the bar way too low.

Banks don't like Bitcoin. Taxis don't like Uber. Hotels don't like AirBnB. Bookstores don't like Amazon. Cinemas don't like Netflix. 9-5’s don’t like remote work. Innovation is not always liked.

If you build a dream around something you love, you're more likely to work hard to get there.

If you feel stuck, you don't need a new job or a new relationship. Feeling "stuck" means you've stopped growing. It's a signal from your heart and soul.

All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blueprint of the desired result.

Don’t wait for permission to apply to places you want to work. Every company I know will make room for someone great, even if they aren’t hiring.

Discipline is superior to motivation. The former can be trained, the latter is fleeting. You won’t be able to accomplish great things if you’re only relying on motivation.

I think it is safe to say without technology not only would I be out of a job but I also wouldn’t have been able to teach myself half the stuff I know.

I used to believe that theory exists to give people a vision of how the world should be. Now I believe theory exists to help us practice, learn, and then update those theories.

Our negativity bias partly explains why we spend most of our energy, time, and attention on problems, tensions, and bottlenecks. But the research shows that negative feedback prevents our learning while positive feedback accelerates it.

Not everyone has to become an entrepreneur. If you just want to do side projects, just draw things or write a book even, just do it! You don’t have to force yourself to become an entrepreneur, it’s not that cool.

The culture of the eight-hour workday is big business’ most powerful tool for keeping people in this same dissatisfied state where the answer to every problem is to buy something.